Read Online Jaguar Pride by Terry Spear - Free Book Online

know it’s a cold case, but you never know when one like that will become dangerous.”
    â€œGotcha. And you be careful too. Sometimes being on leave can be just as treacherous or more so.”
    Smiling, Huntley said he’d talk later and ended the call.
    â€œSo Everett won’t tell the whole world I’m staying with you for a couple of days, will he?” Melissa asked, sounding a little worried.
    Huntley didn’t think her concern had anything to do with who she was staying with. Just that she had broken up so recently. Well, and him too.
    â€œNo. He won’t even tell my dad. Who would then tell my mother, and she would begin to make wedding plans, with or without you.” He set the table.
    â€œI like your mom. She’s the life of the party. Not sure about your dad. I heard he investigated both your sister’s boyfriend and his brother before he gave the Pattersons his approval.”
    Huntley hadn’t wanted to bring that up. But yeah, his dad would be doing an extensive background check on Melissa if she moved in with him. Like he’d done with Genista. His dad had told Huntley he approved of her. Not that Huntley needed his dad’s approval of the girls he dated.
    His dad always said he had never done anything but investments. But Huntley and Everett suspected he had been into covert operations—not jaguar shifter, but human ones. He knew too many people who could do investigations on people. Huntley and his brother suspected that some of their dad’s jaguar friends also were covert operatives, some of whom were retired now.
    Melissa and Huntley sat down to dinner and she said, “I have the perfect show for us to watch tonight if you’re game.” She began eating her potato salad.
    â€œWhat’s that?” Huntley asked, curious because Melissa was smiling so impishly.
    â€œ Mr. and Mrs. Smith .”
    Huntley laughed. “I swear all of the women in the agency love that movie.”
    â€œIt shows what good little homemakers we can be while also—”
    â€œLeading a double life.” Huntley smiled. “Right. And we do. Between our jaguar-shifter business and the jobs we do.”
    â€œYeah, I agree.”
    â€œSo, do you wish you used guns more than your jaguar teeth?”
    â€œNah. It’s fun to see the fantasy, but when it comes to reality, I’m all for the teeth. Don’t you feel more invincible that way?” she asked.
    â€œCertainly we can jump farther and take down prey more easily. But if they’re shooting bullets, that’s bad news. I love that we can discuss missions, though.” Huntley finished his potato salad and served himself some more. “Damn, this is good.”
    â€œThank you. I’m glad you’re enjoying it. I would have preferred baking my own chicken, but it would have taken so long. The pre-roasted one was okay, but next time, I’m cooking it.”
    He was surprised when she said so, like this was moving into something more permanent. He could get into dating her for real.
    â€œI couldn’t talk to Oliver about the missions,” Melissa said, buttering a roll. “Just like I wasn’t interested in what he was doing, he wasn’t interested in my work. Though I couldn’t understand why not. Mine is fascinating.”
    Huntley smiled. “He might have felt a bit emasculated. You’re out swimming with the bull sharks, and he’s sitting in an office making phone calls. Hell, if I was doing that and my girlfriend was facing crocodiles, caiman, sharks, and gun-toting poachers, I would feel ball-less too.”
    She chuckled and her cheeks reddened a little. “True. I tried to talk him into going with me to the Amazon, Belize, Panama, Costa Rica, anywhere that they still have a few jaguars, just to have some fun, but he was completely against it.”
    â€œCity cat through and through,” Huntley said. He had friends who were city